


A song for three voices

by Quillori



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, The Lute Player (Fairy Tale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21842866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: He has waited a long time for ransom or rescue.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A song for three voices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/gifts).



The sentry stood stiff-backed, unmoving. It must be for show - the castle was who knew how deep in Alvari’s lands, and also set half way up a cliff, so it seemed unlikely there would be any call for his services. Or perhaps strange monsters roamed the land: great rocs or ghastly winged demons or dragons breathing fire? If so, they had yet to put in an appearance, but anything might be possible here. On the other hand, the sentry was even less inclined to look up than to either side. Dauman was almost tempted to chuck a stone at him, which was a remarkably childish impulse, but boredom turned out to be a worse thing than he had ever quite realised. It was a nice cell, as cells went, the cold stone ameliorated by rugs and wall hangings, a comfortable bed provided, and a chair, a table, rich food (too rich, with no form of exercise open to him, the endless fruits in syrup and sweetmeats had quickly cloyed), but it was still a cell, and there was nothing. to. do.

He had paced the length and breadth of his cell (seven paces one way, eight the other), he had examined the bars on the window (iron, deep set), he had admired the rugs and tapestries, and stared out at the barren landscape and unmoving sentry (was it always the same one? Impossible to tell at this distance.) He had planned out ways to escape (none of which were possible), and thought of the grief or pleasure or indifference his absence must be bringing - when he had tired of numbering the days of his captivity, he had tried to imagine every way things might be going out in the world, and to decide which were most likely. 

Well, whatever he had thought at first, it was clear that no possibility involving paying his ransom had in fact occurred. If only he could do something, go out hunting with Alvari, or play chess, or train (would he even be able to lift a sword by the time he was finally freed?). If only he could do anything at all that allowed him out of these damnable stone walls: seven paces, eight paces, seven paces, eight. View: still barren. Pace again. View: still completely lacking in arriving ransom. More pacing. Had he been forgotten? Supplanted? Already he had created fanciful tales of the adventures Alvari’s messenger had overcome, and the even greater dangers attendant on bearing a king’s ransom across such dangerous, disputed territory. Already, with less pleasure, he had considered the dramas enacted between those who longed for his return and those who would prefer him absent if not dead. He had, in short, already thought of everything that might distract himself from the one thing he would not think of at all.

§

Only a few days earlier there had still been villages, little collections of houses tucked improbably between the increasingly barren crags. Poor, perhaps, hardly able to offer more than a small bowl of gruel even for the most welcome stranger, but still lit by a flicker of firelight by night, still ringing with voices and activity by day. Now there was nothing at all. There were no paths, and the way was treacherous, steep and icy; the few trees were stunted and straggling, and there were no birds among their branches, no fruits or berries on their narrow, twisted boughs.

§

“Perhaps time passes differently here.” 

It was a warm voice, the words softened slightly and made strange by the unfamiliar burr of his accent, by the unpredictable lilt with which he spoke, always as though he would rather be singing. It was not at all, Dauman thought, an appropriate voice. It should be harsh, or bitterly mocking, or even commanding. It should not be seductive. 

“Is that meant to be a comfort to me?” And yet, in a strange way, it was. Perhaps it was like a story he had once heard, where a man conquered an kingdom, and married a princess, and ruled for many years, all in the space of a dream - perhaps the endless days that passed for him (it must be a year or more, though the season never changed) were but a handful of instants. Or perhaps it was the other sort of story, where a man dined with the elves for an evening, and returned to find his grandchildren long forgotten. Perhaps each day dragged into eternity not from boredom alone, but because it was in truth a lifetime.

§

“We cannot beggar ourselves just because it would be fitting.” 

“We cannot afford to shame ourselves before the entire world.”

The council meeting had convened while the dew was still on the grass, and had proceeded uninterrupted all day. An impassioned plea to loyalty, to the necessities of honour and decency, would fall before the obvious rejoinder - we cannot afford it. Where is the money to come from? But if none of the councillors could bring themselves to commit to paying such a sum, likewise none could so abandon the last claims of duty to outright refuse. Already the long afternoon sunlight, slanting into the council chambers from the gardens beyond, was tinged with the colours of sunset, and the shadows lengthened. But the only change within was a gradual shift, so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, in what was said, or at least, in how it was said. The king - so noble, so brave, so feared, so great a warrior, at whose name nations trembled - that king became, by subtle degrees, the king who reigned over a near bankrupt kingdom, who had no time for his own people, who thought only of his own glory. The king who - oh, let it not be said! But let it all the same be thought, and not only thought, but shared in secret glances, in slight hesitations, in discreet coughs. The king who had benefited his kingdom little, and for his own vainglory would bankrupt it… One by one the councillors looked at the window into the gardens, the servant come to light the lamps, a table with a bowl of nuts, a shadow on the floor, any of a hundred things except the brother of the king, from whom they each averted their eyes with such elaborate care that he was become the centre of all attention.

§

“It is no discredit to you. _Everyone_ is forgotten in the end.”

Dauman would have liked to have argued, to have said yes, in the end, but not so fast. Not when he had not forgotten at all: the petty jealousies and rivalries of his court; the first time his little brother had beaten him at tables; that his wife preferred white flowers to red; the name of his favourite horse; the little cranny where he’d hidden as a boy, spying on his father’s councils. All of it was vivid and real to him, more real than his captivity, from which he still felt at times he would awaken as from a dream.

He would have liked to argue that, but he found he didn’t want to share his memories with Alvari, as though somehow if he spoke of them Alvari might take them from him too, as he had taken so much else. It was a strange feeling, to be afraid, and with such a silly, superstitious fear. Before, Dauman had thought of fear as a sharp, fleeting thing, that gave savour to battle, or a horse ridden to fast over poor ground, or walking the halls of his palace, back unguarded to the intrigues of his enemies. A thing almost to be enjoyed. But here, hemmed in by stone, with nothing to do but think (a not wholly familiar pastime), it was a little, niggling, gnawing thing, easy to ignore moment to moment, but impossible to escape. It made him uncertain. It made him someone not quite himself, he who had been called dauntless since he was a child.

“And, after all, you could return the favour, and forget them.”

That was another disconcerting thing about Alvari - how often it seemed he could read his mind, how often he seemed to reply to the very thing Dauman had chosen not to say. It was coincidence, no doubt, an illusion born of Alvari’s confidence and the knowing look in his dark eyes (part merciless judge, part forgiving confessor), but it was unsettling, and Dauman was not used to being unsettled. 

Well, he would ignore such fancies. They would have a plain conversation, everything spoken aloud, blunt and to the point: “I wouldn’t have thought you planned to forget about the ransom?”

Alvari’s laughter was as pleasing as his voice. “I’m not sure you’re not worth more than I asked. Certainly I’m in no hurry to lose you.”

And perhaps it was true: did he not come almost every day to talk to Dauman, faithful as no one else had proved?

§

There had been no houses now for a long time. How many days had it been? It seemed she had been walking an endless time, but that could not be true, for she would have long since starved to death. In fact, she had almost three sausages left. They were hard, dry things, almost like sticks of wood, that she had to gnaw for hours. They would be better boiled, but she could not get a fire to catch. 

There had never before been a time in her life when she had been truly hungry. And yet, when she tried to call to mind all she had once taken as her due (fresh peaches, sun warmed, tossed down from the tree by her brother; a fish cooked upon the fire, picnicking beside the stream; her husband laying the choicest cut on her platter, the firelight glowing in his hair, perfect in his courtesy; her father with a handful of comfits; her nurse with a nourishing broth) - all these things and more seemed in retrospect hollow, insubstantial, like the ash from the feast of the dead when the flames have died, still holding its shape for a moment, although it lacks all substance.

Even the people. She remembered her brother as a child, but they had grown up, and put away childish things, and gone forth to their different destinies. That child was long gone, lost to the past, and the man who had taken its place was a stranger to her. A stranger. The word rang out in her mind, kept beat with her steps. So many strangers thronged her memories, who had seemed once good friends. Her husband, perfect in his courtesy, and she, young and ready to be pleased, delighted with his looks, his fame. He was the very pattern of noble virtue (had not everyone said so?), and she had taken him too as her due, as much rightfully hers as a goose-down bed or the best seat at dinner. Now her marriage seemed something out of a minstrel’s tale, with no more substance than those remembered meals. And yet it had propelled her from her home, her place in life, everything she had ever known, and sent her out to learn hunger and hardship and fear.

What would happen when the last of the sausages were gone? If she turned round now, she might still make it back to the last village. But if she turned back, there would have been no point to any of her journey.

§

Seven paces by eight, seven paces by eight. Had his brother already declared himself king? Would any of the council have spoken against it? He could almost hear them discussing his ransom, saying you might as well take the wealth of the country and set it ablaze. For a moment he was seized with anger. It was his kingdom, and his wealth, and if these days the modest graves were marked ‘and therefore prepare to follow me’, had not his ancestors taken all their treasure into the land of death, by fire or by burial, to live as lords amongst the dead? What a meagre, poor-souled lot they were, to lay covetous hands on his lands and money, forgetting that they were his men.

But he could not keep his anger burning in that cold room. This was not an age for loyalty and honour, and the stories he had heard and loved and patterned himself by were stories for children, told of a distant and better past. This was an age of merchants, wealthy beyond their birth, of intriguing nobles who kept knives behind their smiles, of townsmen who did not want to fight. Why expect better of them? They had no cause to want him back.

Seven paces by eight. He had studied every tapestry in the room until he was sick of the sight of them, until he could have counted every stitch. Perhaps he should count the rushes on the floor?

Seven paces by eight. And what of his wife? He knew her by her beauty, and her grace, befitting a queen. He knew too the colours she liked to wear, the dishes she liked to eat. But that was all. How little it was, now he came to imagine her, to try to recreate her here in this room, or to be certain what she would be doing at home. Would she be happy to be rid of him? (For, if he were honest with himself - another not wholly familiar pastime - had she not bored him a little? Had he not taken her for granted, and amused himself elsewhere?) Or would she be sorry to lose her position? Would she truly miss him?

Seven paces by eight. The barred window. Seven paces by eight. The chamber door. He turned away sharply and flung himself on the bed. Alvari, who was in no hurry to lose him. Alvari, who - he threw himself back off the bed, and stood by the window, which was as far from the door as it was possible to get, his head pressed against the cold iron, his hands gripping the bars. He would think about his councillors, and his brother, and his wife, and how he missed riding, and whether his best hawk was still alive, and he would not think at all of the unlocked cell door, through which he could pass at any time, for a price.

§

She came upon the castle quite suddenly: at one moment there was nothing to do but walk, one foot in front of the other through the changeless, trackless wilderness. The next, she was at the base of a cliff, with a path winding up before her, and the castle above her. 

There was a lone sentry standing guard by the great gates. She thought as she approached how isolated he looked: a single small figure against all that towering stone. And what was there to guard against? Or if there was some danger in that great wasteland, what good was there in one man, alone? And then she drew near, and saw him better. 

Her first thought was that it was some twisted joke, mocking those few who ventured thus far, or perhaps a warning (although surely it was too late to turn aside). For though he was dressed in a gay uniform, and seemed to stand to attention, his head was almost severed from his body. Then she saw he still lived, although little but a flap of skin held his head in place, and there was no trace of pain or fear in his expression. It was as if he had not noticed yet that he was dying, that he should already be dead. And indeed he spoke to her courteously enough, and without apparent difficulty, asking her her business like any guard at any gate. 

She told him that she was a wandering musician who begged leave to perform before the castle’s lord. Even as she spoke, the words sounded ridiculous in her mouth. What musician would wander so far from any road? But he showed no trace of doubt as he gave her leave to enter, and turned away to look out once more over the empty land.

§

The great hall seemed endless, its walls and ceiling lost in darkness. It was filled with table upon table, and on each table was laid a rich feast. The courtiers clustered round, each more ornately dressed than the last, and between their clothes, and their jewels, and the fine silver platters, and the gold wine-bowls, it was clear the kingdom, isolated though it might be, was far richer than her husband's and her father's combined. Almost, the display of wealth was enough to distract her from the servants. Almost, but not quite, for they were for the most part like the sentry. One had had his head half stove in by some great blow, another still bore an arrow through the chest; one was white as snow, except for the hectic colour of his cheeks and the fever-gleam in his eyes; one still had pond-weed in her hair.

She was aware the eyes of the king were upon her, calm and appraising. She looked at the servants passing to and fro, and she thought - and then she tried not to think - of the meagre rations with which she had set out across the wastelands, and of how very long the journey had been. She forced herself to look up again, at the king, and to meet his gaze steadily, thinking of nothing but the song she would sing him. It was an old song, made new with her own devisings, and she had heard enough of the old ways to know what fee she could demand for it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, as well as a few touches of Richard the Lionheart, both the historical version and the storybook version with Blondel searching him out, there is also a fair helping of Sir Orfeo.


End file.
